Welcome!

Welcome to my Polish blog! My Polish great grandpa was orphaned during the Chicago flu epidemic of 1918 & spent his life looking for all of his siblings. Some family stayed in Chicago & some returned to Poland. Some family was Catholic, & some are believed to be Jewish. I post the things I learn in efforts it may help someone else in their research. I also hope this blog helps me connect with others that know about the people I'm learning about. Digital images of records or links are put inside most postings so you can view records full screen. I encourage comments. Feel free to sign the guestbook, stating who you're looking for. Maybe we can all help each other out this way, because there are many challenges with Polish research. I hope you enjoy learning with me. And I hope to be taught more about my Polish heritage.I have added a few languages to this blog through Google translate. I hope that it may be accurate enough with the communication of ideas. Thanks! -Julie

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24 January 2016

How can DNA testing help with my family research? My testing

This was a post I did on my Mecklenburg, VA blog. There are also notes about hopes for DNA helping with our Polish family too. If you wish to compare to see if our families have matches, let me know by messaging me. (email, Facebook, Ancestry.com messages, 23andme messages, My Heritage messages, and findmypast messages)
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I'm still really new at DNA research. I'm trying to learn all I can
about it. I read articles, take DNA classes at genealogy conferences,
bought a book, etc. I wondered, how can I apply it, and use it as a
source for my personal ancestry? The more I read, the more questions I
have. (A good thing.) Really, I find it all a completely fascinating
concept. I've messaged with several people on Ancestry.com, 23andme
(including My Heritage) and gedmatch.com who have the highest matches to
me. Sometime I send messages. Sometimes others see I'm a match and
message me. I plan to take DNA tests at multiple places. Just doing a
little at a time. A lot of my highest match results, we connect 150-250
years ago! (And my family had 6 generations in 100 years!) For some of
my family that's pre-USA time period, still mostly unknown areas for
me. Thankfully, most the people I message with have our families
documented well enough that we can see where we match up. Others newer
to family history, don't know enough yet to make connections. But the
match is still there to keep in mind until newer and better sources
arise.

I've had two interesting emails about DNA
matches this week that I wanted to share. One lady told me her ancestor
was Jeremiah Jones, and that he was supposed to be part of my family in
Mecklenburg, VA. She said she'd seen lots of trees reflect this, but no
sources listed. They just referenced eachother's trees. She saw I had
sources listed, but not her Jeremiah. So she asked me what I knew about
it. We concluded that her Jones family was not part of my Jones family. I
had court documents stating those relationships, and who all the heirs
were. Unfortunately I hadn't heard of her Jeremiah, so I wasn't able to
tell her which family to look at. I added my info to gedmatch.com
earlier this month. I gave her my DNA match number, and she checked it
against her mother and her aunt. No matches at all! So DNA was able to
back up that our families did not match. I hope it will soon help her
identify the correct family.

George & Arthur Stowe. Sarah, Lucy Long, Violetta Stowe

My second story I think is really amazing. It's about
my elusive Sarah. She was Cherokee. (See picture to the right. Clicking
on it will enlarge it.) In this picture my ancestry is George Stowe,
(far left), his mother Lucy Long, and her mother Sarah Jamison or
Jempson. (George Stowe, was married to Fannie Gray, my Mecklenburg, VA ancestor pictured in the heading of this blog.) We
know Sarah was first married to David Dunn and had 3 children (Nancy,
James and infant). The youngest child died as an infant a year before
David died in the battle of Chancellorsville, VA not too far from where I
live now. Sarah then was supposed to have married a Jimmy or Billy
Long. Sarah and the unknown Mr. Long had Lucy and a baby named Emmett
who died soon after birth. For decades we wondered "who was Lucy's
father?" About two years ago, a Long researcher told me, "I think Lucy's
father is James Randolph Long, who is also my ancestor." We compared
notes for several weeks. James Long married Catherine Havener and they
had 10 children together. One of James and Catherine's children named
William Long (Billy), married Nancy Dunn. (The daughter from Sarah's
first marriage.) Another of James and Catherine's children named Wallace
Long, married Matilda Adeline Dunn, a sister to David Dunn. (Sarah's
first husband). A bit confusing, but it shows a lot of connection
between this Dunn and Long family. My Sarah was listed in Matilda Dunn
Long's family Bible with David Dunn and their 3 children. We kept
searching for some good proof, because we wanted to make sure the
relationships were all in our tree correctly, and because the 1870
Census had confusing and conflicting information. James and Catherine
Long also had a daughter named Barbara Long Rhyne. She married (Rhyne),
but did not have any children. In her estate record, she listed all of
her siblings and included Lucy. Nancy Dunn was a sister in law and half
sibling to Barbara, but she had already died. James Dunn, (Nancy's
brother and Lucy's half brother) was not listed as a sibling to Barbara.
James went to Texas with several of his grown and married children from
his marriage to Catherine. Sarah and Lucy stayed behind. James died
soon after his arrival to Texas.

We were feeling
pretty confident in our little pieces of evidence all getting put
together. Recently 5 of us who believed ourselves to be descendants of
James R. Long, all did DNA tests with 3 different companies. Someone
recommended we all put our DNA info into gedmatch.com and compare. We
all did, and discovered this weekend we all matched! Descendants from 2
of James and Catherine's children, and 2 of us from Lucy (from 2
different marriages of Lucy) all matched. I thought this was really cool
that we were able to back up what we had researched. Those of us who
tested, did not have Dunn DNA ancestry, (only connections by marriages)
so our matches would have been through the James Long family. I read a
few emails today, about surname studies, including one set up for James
Long. That's my project goal for this week.

I told my
grandparents about this yesterday. They were really excited at the
possibilities with DNA. They said they really want to get Y-DNA testing
done for my grandfather. He's already done the regular Ancestry.com
test. My grandfather is half Polish. His father Paul was born in
Chicago. Paul's oldest sibling was born in Zywiec, Poland, just before
the family immigrated to the United States. There are a number of people
who have told me think they are related to our family. Same place,
records in same church, same rare surname, ...I was born about 56 years
after flu epidemic family separations, and 36 years after the invasion
of Poland. I think the majority of the people who could have answered my
questions about ancestry didn't survive the flu epidemic of 1918, or
were separated in WWII, and we're still not able to reconnect. I think
there's really great potential for my grandfather to find out more about
his Polish (Sanetra and Wandzel) ancestry this way.

My
conclusion? DNA can be an extremely useful tool, and used as a source
to corroborate other records we find. There's lots to continuously learn
about, and I look forward to future findings!